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DRYH: At The Crossroads - Setting Details
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=The Labyrinth Nightmares= ==The Blood Queen - Pain 3/6/9== The Blood Queen is first and foremost the Nightmare to Nightmares. In all her incarnations she appears as a bloodsoaked female. In the First Watch [from the first through the fourth hour] she manifests as a little girl [Pain 3]. In the Middle Watch [from the fifth through the eighth hour] she manifests as a stately woman [Pain 6]. In the Last Watch [from the ninth through the twelfth hour] she manifests as a gnarled crone with jagged nails and teeth [Pain 9]. No one even whispers about what she becomes during the Thirteenth Hour or what Pain she brings then. '''Blood Gift:''' Any Human who drinks of the Blood Queen's blood is instantly transformed into a Vampir Nightmare with a Pain rating 2 less than the Blood Queen's own Pain rating at the time they drank from her - 1/4/7 during the twelve hours of the Watch or higher if created during the 13th Hour. '''Special:''' Vampir created during the Thirteenth Hour are not in thrall to the Blood Queen or subject to her commands. '''Special:''' The Pain Rating of Nightmares who come within sight of the Blood Queen drops two points and remains reduced while in her presence. Only the Raven and Mistress When are known to be immune to this effect. The Blood Queen's Vampir add one pain to their rating in her presence and tend to congregate near her unless ordered to do otherwise. ==Vampir - Pain 1/4/7== Vampir are pale humanoid Nightmares created by the Blood Queen from raw human stock and conform closely to the Vampires of popular human lore. Vampir of Pain 1 are rare, usually created in emergencies and afterward given to higher pain Vampir as servants or destroyed outright. Vampir follow a close hierarchy based on pain rating (further delineated by age within each pain rating). Two Vampir of higher than 7 pain are known to exist. They do not answer to the Blood Queen, but there is nothing to say they would refuse her either. ==Journey Men - Pain 6== Bare wisps of lean, tall, man-shaped shadows in shadowy finery, the Journey Men are the emissaries of the Major Nightmares, carrying messages between them and seeing to tasks involved when two Major Nightmares must meet on neutral ground. It is whispered that the Journey Men act as Assasins when the Major Nightmares do not want their own hand seen attached to a thing. '''Special:''' Physical barriers are no obstacle to the Journey Men. They are able to flow up and over and through cracks to get where they are going. They are, however, unable to enter the Bizarre Bazaar. ==The Barber - Pain 5== The Barber appears as a shrewd muscular man with a bald pate and a massive handlebar mustache in simple clothing and always carrying a wicked looking straight razor. Little happens in the Narrows that the Barber is unaware through his network of Urchins. ==Urchins - Pain 1 1/3== The vast majority of Urchins are child sized, rumpled and anonymous. They move singly, in pairs, small groups, in their constant spy game. Urchins will rarely act directly against an Awakened so long as their perceived routine is not interrupted or hindered in any way. '''Special:''' Urchins bring one extra pain die to their total Pain rating for every three of them present. This trumps the normal rule for adding pain for groups of Nightmares. ==Rag Girls - Pain 1== Rag Girls are pretty little orphans with pock marked faces in tattered dresses made from scraps and old rags dragging a little rag doll in one hand as they skip and dance about chanting vile versions of Ring Around the Rosie that seems like it might be as much about various venereal diseases as plague. They seem mostly harmless until they are right upon their marked prey, whom they will follow for blocks with no hint of threat. But when they draw nigh their rag dolls dissolve into wickedly sharp tools of rusted metal in their grubby little fists and their faces become something translucent that shows the sharp and empty outline of the skull beneath the skin. ==The Night Callers - Pain 1== The Night Callers crowd the rooftops of the Peaks, leaping from one to another, shouting to one another as they go through their constant game of motion. They are of a size and shape with little children but have the faces of birds and beasts and might have fur or feathers or tails to match the face, though their main limbs remain more human than beast. For instance while one might have feathers on it's arms that hang down like wings, they are still arms, not actual wings. Not that that makes them any less mobile as they flit about from rooftop to rooftop. In particular, when the Night Callers spot one of the Awake in their domain, or other surface dwellers climb up, they let out an odd warbling cry that brings more of their kind. ==The Haj - Pain 7 [9 in the Silent House]== The Haj is the Lord of the Silent House and appears as a massively built man in broad silk pantaloons and sash with the massive head of an elephant with gilded tusks and three eyes [with the third set high in the center of his forehead] that glow a flickering amber. '''Special:''' The Haj is able to cause complete silence and complete darkness to blanket everything within the Silent House at will. ==The Rakshasa - Pain 4== The Rakshasa resemble tiger headed men of massive stature and keep the peace in the Silent House acting as the Haj's guards and enforcers. '''Special:''' When there are more than one Rakshasa in an encounter the first two are counted at Full pain rating if they are within the Silent House ==Mistress When - Pain 9== Mistress When is a shaper of flesh and seller of souls, a striking beauty whose features match the expectations of whoever gazes upon her. Considering her position, most expect exquisite. ==The Menagerie - Pain 1== What happens to Nightmares who grow up? In the Mad City, where Time is sluggish with paradox and reluctance, they never should. But in Mistress When's capable hands, they do. The Menagerie is what happens to the Night Callers who leap too close to her tower. The girls anyway. The broken remains of the few boys who do survive her malice can be found scattered throughout the Mad City tormenting broken Denizens and wishing for death. The girls are another story. They remain mostly young but grow tall and straight where they ought and plumply curved where she demands. Their animal faces become idealized porcelain masks of the same animal, but can never be removed. Tails and feathers and fur become part of a costume made more of skin than anything else. This is Mistress When's Menagerie, traded, loaned, even gifted to Nightmares to do with as they will, to butcher and harm, to flay alive and subject to all manner of torture until the clock chimes the Thirteenth Hour, at which time the contract ends and the Menagerie returns to Mistress When, broken but terribly, terribly whole. Ready to be given to new Nightmares at the chiming of the first hour. ==The Wretched - Pain 3== The Wretched are women of the Menagerie who have grown beyond their station to become Mistress When's Lieutenants. The Wretched always manifest as gaunt women in proper modest garb with their lower jaws ripped away and black blood constantly seeping out of the wound that remains. All animalistic aspects from their time in the Menagerie are gone, but a twinkle of mad lust and invitation remains in their eyes. ==The Broken Ones - Pain 2== Male Night Callers who survive Mistress When's tortures flee, broken in body and spirit, their animal flesh torn away, never to regrow, open wounds exposed to the air, faceless faces terrifying to behold. Beast shaped masks of blood. Gone are the nights leaping between the Rooftops of the Peaks. The Broken Ones live only to visit the same torture that was visited upon them on others, though they are often too weak to manage it effectively. '''Special:''' Denizens who ally with a Broken One have a Pain rating of 1 instead of 0. ==The Eyeless - Pain 0== As their name implies, these men and women have no eyes, but sallow amber flames flicker in their empty sockets and their skin seems waxy and almost fluid. ==The Smith - Pain 5== The great convex face of the Hammerwall that bulges into the Labyrinth is a hive of industry and metalwork. It is here that the Smith of the Hammerwall plies his trade. Stout and bearded The Smith is a construct of every known metal meshed together in clockwork perfection, the Smith is fearless when wielding his great hammer. In any conflict with the Smith, should Pain dominate, regardless of success or failure and in addition to any other applicable complications, the Awakened is considered Armorlocked. One or more limb is encased in a thick sleeve of iron by the Smith's hammer and immobile. ==The Alchemist - Pain 7== Tall and gaunt, the Alchemist is a faceless figure in dark robes who wields unparalleled power in the form of potions and darting wisps of light. The Alchemist can transmute any substance into any substance he chooses. ==Cogs - Pain 0== Denizens of Tinkertown, Cogs are clockwork people who assist the Smith and the Alchemist in their endeavors. ==Scampers - Pain 0== No one has ever seen a Scamper, but many have heard them, their little feet skipping or dragging across the cobbles, childlike laughter or sobs ringing out from the gutter, the alley, the next street over, the alcove just passed. Investigation will never turn up a Scamper, but will instead lead to a toy set in the middle of a street or gutter or alleyway siting in the middle of its own little puddle of light all alone as if under a streetlamp that just isn't there. The toy might be anything - a teddy bear, a doll, a jack in the box - battered and well loved and oddly compelling. Picking up the toy will have one of two effects; characters with Discipline equal to or exceeding their current Exhaustion dice immediately lose all exhaustion. If, however, the character's current Exhaustion exceeds their Discipline, the toy summons a Nighmare whose Pain rating equals or exceeds the Awakened's current Exhaustion dice. Regardless of the effect, the toy immediately fades away. ==The Fallen - Pain 0== Many who meet their end in horrible circumstances find their way into the Mad City just before that last moment, escaping one horrifying end for another. '''Special:''' No matter how hard you kill them to death, the Fallen always get back up. ----
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